Springbok Arete - 2023 conditions update

[jtodorovich]

Dan and I had quite the adventure on Sprinbok Arete!  We climbed on 07/02/2023.  There is plenty of info on the route already so I'll just give a brief update on conditions of the road, approach, and route.

::The route::

The first major thing to note is right now we would consider this route a death trap!! I would strongly advise avoiding Springbok Arete and Voodoo Child until 2 massive blocks are trundled.  Using mountain project pitch descriptions of Springbok Arete::: at the end of pitch 7 the slung horn previously used as a belay is gone.  I decided to keep climbing before setting up my anchor.  The route goes up a chimney feature with 2 large blocks wedged in it.  Each block is about ~10 feet tall 2-3 feet wide and 3-5 feet deep.  The only way up at this point is climbing directly up the blocks.  As I was hand jamming up between the right block and the main wall, I could feel it just barely move.  The movement was small enough I wasn't entirely sure it happened.  Maybe my hand just slipped a little?  Maybe the noise I heard was just standard noise of minor rock flex we've all heard in the mountains? I made it to the top of the blocks without incident, but decided to build a belay at that point so I could clearly talk to Dan when he climbed through.  My belay was slightly to the left in a solid crack and I could stand on the left block and thought this would be fine.  As Dan came up the pitch I warned him that the right block may be a touch loose, but I wasn't sure.  As he climbed, both blocks shifted out from the wall about 6 inches.  We both immediately fully weighted the anchor.  I lowered Dan rope and he jugged up the wall touching them as little as possible.  Fortunately we made it to the top without any incident, but these blocks are definitely loose, want to shift out from the wall, and could come down under the weight of the next leader, which would for sure kill them.  We didn't try to trundle them as there was a party below us (we yelled down to them and they rappelled) and honestly we were a little sketched/shook and just wanted to get out of there.  I unfortunately didn't take any photos from this point, but below are some photos from online with the approximate location marked. 

Voodoo Child joins the route at this exact location (I think) so should be avoided.  Sprungcock Erect splits before this section so should be safe to climb.  The Gatekeeper is fully to the left so is safe from this.

Location of loose blocks

 

::The road::

There is a major washout at approximately mile 11.4.  Immediately after, there are two river crossings (one crosses the Anderson River and the other crosses an unlabeled river running east/west), both bridges are gone.  Dan and I decided to bring E-bikes thinking we could quickly and easily ride the 3ish mile road to the old parking location.  Crossing the two rivers with the heavy ebikes was a huge pain the in butt, but we made it.  Subsequently the next five or so creeks were also washed out.  Carrying the ebikes up and down the washouts was slow and tiring.  Looking ahead at the map we had many more creek crossings to go so we decided to ditch the bikes.  Of course none of the next creeks were washed out and we could have had a fun, and fast 2 mile ride.  Instead we walked.... Oh well now we know..

I drove my rav4 which was fine.  You need something with a little clearance because there are a lot of tank traps dug up on the road.  There is one area where brush is growing into the road.  Don't bring a car that you care deeply about its paint job.

New Parking Location

 

::The approach::

Its pretty much what everyone describes.  Alder schwacking for a few miles.. Its not fun, but honestly wasn't that bad.  If you just put your head down and go, it doesn't slow you down that much.  We saw bear scat on the road/hike every couple hundred feet until we broke up into the mature forest.  This is the lower edge of grizzly country...  We had bear spray with us (fortunately Sam from Waddington Outdoors gave us the heads up on bears), but only ever saw scat and tracks.  Fortunately bushwacking is relatively noisy so any bears probably heard us coming from a ways away.  There are 2 old roads that run north/south up the valley from the old parking location.  We accidentally took the one on the west side of the river.  Its not what is recommended in Cascade Rock, but I'd do it again.  Either way, you have to schwack up an old, overgrown road.  The one we took was more direct, involved one less creek crossing, and had less gain/loss of elevation.  I haven't hiked the other side so I can't compare. 

Black was the approach we took, blue is what is described in Cascades Rock, Steph Abegg, etc..

 

The last bit of excitement we had was on the descent, which involves going doing the chossy gully between the two mountains.  About halfway down a basketball-sized rock came down and narrowly missed Dan's head while he was rapping, but did manage to core shot our rope in 4 places.  Fortunately we had a unicore rope, which worked very well.  We rapped with one 70m rope, which took us 10 or 11 rappels.  Steph's rap beta is perfect.  We had to rap one or two more times at the end than she describes because the bottom of the gully was choked in steepish snow.  Overall we had a great time, but were happy to be down safe! 

Someone needs to put up modern routes on Steinbok Peak.  It looks amazing!

 

[JasonG]

Damn.  Glad you both survived the chop, sounds like it easily could have taken both of you and the party below.

And THANK YOU  for the PSA, a great notice to the greater climbing community and one of the perfect examples of why this site is still relevant (even though I am biased).

Also, some most excellent recent beta on the approach.  Again, thanks!

[geosean]

Damn! Glad it all worked out!!! Sketchy. 

"Warning, climbing is inherently dangerous" to be sure. Even on routes that seem like they should be safer than say Lincoln or North Index in winter or the Price Glacier.

[thedylan]

Good idea to post, sounds even scarier than when you told me about it! I didn't realize there was a party below. Glad they and you and Dan are all ok.

[jtodorovich]

On 7/25/2023 at 10:39 AM, thedylan said:

Good idea to post, sounds even scarier than when you told me about it! I didn't realize there was a party below. Glad they and you and Dan are all ok.

To be fair, the route traverses quite a bit up to this point so the party below was safely off to the side.  Either way, we were happy nothing came down!